


But Not Really

by Ekatarinabeisel76



Series: It's A Kind of Magic! [2]
Category: Highlander: The Series, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010), Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Gods, Sacrifice, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ekatarinabeisel76/pseuds/Ekatarinabeisel76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a dark magic cult killing poeple in Central Park. Bobby has no idea what's going on. Becky and Veronica are missing. There's a Federal Agent on Kleo's trail. You, know, just your normal day as a Sorcereress in New York City.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ignotum volitantia puella in magnum pupillam

The only classes Kleo didn’t share with any of her friends were fifth and ninth period. Sometimes it was annoying; she had no time to herself in any of her classes before Government. Yancy, being a private school, allowed their freshmen to attempt AP classes, for no reason other than it got them that much more money every year. Kleo sat through Latin with all of her friends, band with Alex, algebra with everyone but Aadil, Emily, and Avery, choir with Alex and Emily, and then she finally went to Government by herself. She admitted that she was a little worried though, because she hadn’t seen Ryan in two days and it just wasn’t like him not to call her.

 

It was a relief to have some time to herself, but she didn’t enjoy the class. She could have taken it another year, but she didn’t really see any point in that. Lao Ma had encouraged her to get her required state history and government classes out of the way in her first year of high school, and that was what she was doing. However, no amount of encouragement could make up for Mr. Kunzler’s dull voice, or the way he droned through the textbook, and assigned them pages of questions for homework and then copied and pasted them into a word document for their quizzes.

 

Kleo was happy to be going to government anyway though. It was fifth period, which meant that her day was half-way over, and she only had forty-five minutes until lunch. Unfortunately, her government classroom was all the way across the school and in the basement. She had to walk at a very brisk pace to get there before the bell rang, but she didn’t mind; the long walk gave her time to scan faces and people-watch. 

 

It was a habit that had been instilled in her over years of living on the run and by herself, or finding shelter with the local gang when she didn’t have money for a motel nor the energy to steal some. Those were the days before Camp Jupiter, before her mother had found her and led her to Jason. It was still a useful skill though, so she kept practicing; people watching in high-school proved very amusing, even if it didn’t save her life.

 

Amy Trinh was standing by her locker and talking to Joseph Gonzalez; she was about to cry and he was shaking his head pitifully at her. She wasn’t the first girl to have a bruising crush on him, and she certainly wouldn’t be the last. Meaghan Sealy was holding her fingernails out for inspection by Tamika Briggs; daily beauty inspections were mandatory if you wanted to join the Perfects. Tamika happened to be one of the other cheer captains, and Kleo struggled to quash every insult that threatened to leap off her tongue whenever she was forced to interact with her. The resident potheads of the senior class were talking to each other; their lips moved slowly and their eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything.  
There was nothing out of the ordinary so far. Kleo continued to walk down the hallway. The set of stairs she needed was just past the Front office, which was really nothing special. The walls were yellow and covered in pictures showing students in friendly embraces with teachers, administrators, and their peers. Kleo thought it was rather like a lion’s den decorated with propaganda and intentionally gruesome and startling statistics about lambs, with some fancy plaques purporting grand achievements of the pride.  
At first she prepared to turn onto the staircase, essentially turning her back on the cave of perpetual misery known as the suite of administrator’s offices, but then she heard something over the dull roar of the students conversing in the hallway around her.

 

“-a federal investigation.” 

 

The words flowed from her right, out of the walls guarding the principal’s office from view. At first she pushed it aside, but then she heard Principal Myers reply in her high-pitched, nasal voice.

 

“Of course! We take discipline of students very seriously here at Yancy Academy Mr. McCormick.”

 

“It’s Special Agent McCormick Ma’am.” He corrected her. He had a clear southern accent, and he spoke through a film of politeness that Kleo found contradictory in a federal agent. Kleo, having abandoned all thought of going to government in the inescapable school basement, pressed herself up against the wall. 

 

The principal’s office shared a wall with the janitor’s closet. If she was lucky, she could hide in there and eavesdrop on the conversation. She tried the door, and cursed bitterly when the handle refused to budge. She looked around wildly, cursing her luck (or lack thereof). She had to listen in somehow.

 

She took out her student ID card, and tried to slip it into the electronic lock mechanism between the door and the it’s frame. It proved unsuccessful. She kicked the door, which only hurt her foot. She cursed some more, and concentrated as she tried one more time to unlock the janitor’s closet. She thought to herself fervently as she began to slide the thin piece of plastic into the narrow space once more.

 

Please work! Please work! I need this to work! This has to Work!

 

She felt something hot shoot from her hand and surge forward into the lock, but she couldn’t be sure what it was because she had been so focused on the card in her hand. Though, if she hadn’t known better, she would have said it was a tiny bolt of electivity.

 

“What is it exactly that you want with her?” Myers asked somewhat hesitantly. “She’s an exemplary student; the captain of several school teams-“

 

“I’m not interested in what Ms. Grace has done while in New York Ms. Myers. I am only concerned with the things she did before she arrived. I’ll need to look at her transcripts and any other documents you have received from her.”

 

“Shit!” Kleo hissed.

 

She scrambled to get her phone out of her purse, but then thought better of it. Her priority was getting out of school without being noticed by McCormick. Her heart raced as she placed her cellphone back in her purse and pressed her ear to the door once more. The word floated through the drywall and into her ears, but her mind was splitting its attention between formulating an escape route and deciding who to call.

 

She had to warn her friends. They would be the first people McCormick hauled in to bully, with or without parental consent. On the other hand, she couldn’t call or text them without it showing up on their phone records, which McCormick could easily get a subpoena for. Kleo considered calling Lao Ma or Haresh, but the same problem smacked her in the face – they were traceable.

 

Facing a severe dilemma, Kleo chewed her bottom lip. Her teeth brushed the ring around the corner of her mouth. Instantly, as if by divine intervention, she had an idea. It wouldn’t guarantee her an infallible escape route, but it would give her a disguise.

 

She set her bag on the floor lightly, and set her phone atop one of the cabinets. She set it to record, so that she could listen to the conversation unfolding in the principal’s office later. Then she opened up her bag very slowly; she had to make as little noise as possible. After removing all of her piercings, except for the studs in both of her ears, she set about changing her clothes. 

 

There were lockers in the janitor closets, and more than one was unlocked. Kleo guessed that the jumpsuit she stole belonged to Ms. Craigesson, a sweet but rather crass woman in her early fifties. She shimmied out of her jeans and shoved them into her bag along with a small bag containing her piercings. After zipping up the unflattering and rather pungently-smelling janitor’s uniform, Kleo removed the braid in her hair and allowed the mass of black strands to hang about her upper body in a veil.  
Satisfied with her disguise, she pressed her ear back to the wall separating her from the federal agent who had come to detain.

 

“It appears that Ms. Grace did not report in for her fifth period class.”

 

“Of course not.” Agent McCormick said smugly. “Where are all of the exits to this school?”

 

“Well-“

 

Kleo knew that was her chance. She opened the closet slowly, and placed her bags in front of her body to shield them from the view of the two officers posted outside the entrance to the Main Office. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest, and she tried in vain to suppress the dizzying tangle of thoughts coursing through her consciousness. She heard McCormick and Myers exit the office, and she struggled desperately not to increase her speed.

 

“Look Normal.” She thought. “Look Normal!”

 

She considered using a cloaking spell, but without any ingredients our means of channeling the spell it was far too dangerous. She had no idea how much energy she would need to get to wherever she was going o flee to, which meant that she couldn’t afford to cast a spell based on energy alone.

 

None of the agents seemed to notice her. Kleo breathed a massive sigh of relief when she reached the service elevator. She pressed the button for the roof, and waited with baited breath for the ding of the machine to tell her that she had arrived.

 

She felt briefly at peace when a breeze swept by her, though she had no idea why. Kleo always felt better when she was off the ground – flying on an airplane was sheer bliss for her, while rock climbing was a beloved pastime. She walked out onto the school roof cautiously, until she realized that it was ten in the morning on a Monday; no one would be out on the streets, much less staring up at the roof of the school building.

 

“Only one problem now.” She whispered to herself as she looked down over the edge of the building.

 

How was she supposed to get down? The school was easily 30 feet high, and the closest building was eight feet away. Kleo took one long, deep, laborious breath. She only saw one option. She couldn’t scale down the school building because it was entirely smooth brick-face – no window ledges or gutters to aid her descent. A jump down would surely break both of her legs, if not kill her.

 

She backed up slowly until she was in the dead center of the roof. Then, after one last anticipatory breath, she surged forward. Her feet pounded against the concrete roof in time with her heart, and just before she lifted her feet off the ground, she felt the adrenaline gushing through her bloodstream.

 

Then the strangest thing happened. Kleo couldn’t explain it in any way, since she had never jumped off a building before and she had never felt a breeze strong enough to lift her across eight feet before either. It felt as if a sudden gush of wind had lifted her up though. The wind seemed to carry her across the gap.

 

Kleo landed safely on top of a convenience store roof, which was a fair ten feet shorter than the school. The gust seemed to have cushioned her from the impact as well. Shaking it off, Kleo rushed to get out of range of the school windows. The next building was newspaper stand, which was short enough that she easily hopped down from it. Oddly enough, Kleo felt a strange longing for the wind to carry her again. She dismissed it as the need to confirm her suspicions about the experience, but there was more to it than she wanted to admit. Deep down she knew what it really was; she simply wanted to ride the wind again.

 

From there she headed downtown, to Dave Stutler’s research space. He shared it with his master Balthazar Blake and his fiancé Veronica, but they were friendly enough. All of the sorcerers in New York that were worth knowing knew all of the others. She could call Lao Ma from there, and it wouldn’t look suspicious because Balthazar and La Mao called each other often to arrange their Ma Jong games.

 

However, Kleo’s momentary happiness at hatching a plan faded when she realized that it was too dangerous to use her metro pass, or any public transport. She sighed.

 

“It’s going to be a long day.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was half-past ten o’clock in the morning when Kleo arrived at Dave Stutler’s lab. The sun was high and beating down on her back particularly hard for February weather to permit, but the air was still bitingly cold against the bare skin of her face and arms. A journey that took her 45 minutes on public transit had consumed almost three hours, and Kleo was in no great mood to have a civilized conversation with anyone because of the large and very inconvenient distance from Yancy Academy (In Manhattan) to Sedgwick Avenue Station (in the Bronx).  
Kleo gave a sigh of resignation (read: utter defeat) as she rounded the corner and barreled down the stairs towards the imposing metal door, which had an even more imposing “KEEP OUT – BEWARE – CONDEMNED BY THE CITY OF NEW YORK” sign slapped on its face in red and white paint. Her boot shot out to collide with the solid steel door in a rapid series of pointed blows. The noise reverberated against the large slabs of brown stone that composed the abandoned rail station on Sedgwick Avenue, and the hinged shrieked in protest as the door swung open.  
Behind the door was a tall young man in his early twenties. His thick black hair was piled into a style that loosely resembled a pompadour, and his eyes were large and constantly flitting about as if in a state of nervous overload. He wore a long-sleeve gray shirt under some green and blue plaid monstrosity coupled with ratty jeans and well-worn converse.  
“Hi Kleo.” He said tentatively. He peered out into the street anxiously, wondering why Kleo, of all people, had appeared on his doorstep halfway through the school day.  
“Sorry to bother you Dave, but I need to talk to Balthazar. Is he here?” she didn’t mean for her words to come out so quickly and jumbled together, or for her hand to twitch at her side as a tell of just how nervous she really was.  
It was embarrassing for her to be so damn worried about this situation in front of someone she dealt with so regularly. Her obvious anxiety did seem to clue Dave in on how serious the situation was though. He hurriedly ushered her inside, scrambling to question her on what had happened.  
“Balthazar isn’t here right now, but he should be back soon. He said he had to talk to some people about the murders this week.” Dave supplied as they barreled down the stone steps towards the lower platform of the station.  
“Have you heard anything new so far?” Kleo asked him.  
“Uh – um – no actually, b-but Balthazar said he wanted to talk to you after you looked at his great-big-board-of-doom.”  
She knew what he was referring to. In the bowels of the abandoned station that they called their nest, Balthazar had set up his own lab. But where Dave’s was full of electrical equipment, wires, fuses, bolts, and gigantic Tesla coils, Balthazar had stocked his lab with magical ingredients, arcane artifacts, and dusty volumes placed on rickety shelves. The last time Kleo had been down into the office, which she, Drake, and Dave had dubbed The Bat Lair simply to annoy Balthazar, the whiteboard had been in a neglected corner.  
It now resided in the exact center of the office, facing opposite Balthazar’s favorite chair. It was a sad testament to how distressed the magical community of New York City was now that three of their own were dead.  
“This is all so confusing.” Dave said, struggling to get his words out from around his tongue, where they had apparently latched on with a vengeance.  
“All of them were sorcerers, not wiccans, or witches, but full-blown sorcerers.” She said.  
There was a fundamental difference between sorcerers and everyone else who practices magic of any kind. And while it was true that there were more many different kinds of sorcerers, the fact remained that they all had one thing in common. It was not gender, or creed, or even their level of power; sorcerers were distinguished by the fact that they were born with the ability to perform magic. For a sorcerer, magic was a right of their bloodline, guaranteed unto them from the time of their hearts first beat until their very last breath.  
“Yes, and they’ve all been murdered in Central Park, and they’ve all been mutilated.”Dave said. He kept his eyes trained on the ground, so as not to look at the scribbled words and gruesome pictures on the whiteboard.  
Kleo couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t his fault that this was the worst thing that he’d ever seen. Actually, it was probably a good thing to let Dave be a little naïve about some of the evil out there, at least so long as those forces weren’t trained on him. It wouldn’t be long before he had to deal with them anyway, and neither Kleo nor Balthazar saw any reason to rush the confrontation. However, her brows furrowed at this new information about the bodies being mutilated.  
She might have called Bobby for information, but tipping off the FBI to the head of a syndicate of grave desecrators and vandals was quite possibly the worst idea ever. Ellen would have been the safest bet if she had been alive. She wasn’t about to call Bela, or anyone else in the family, for the same reason that she couldn’t call Bobby. That left Rufus, or Missouri, or Papa Midnite.  
No doubt both Missouri and Papa Midnite already knew, and she could use her journal to get the information to Rufus. First though, she needed to take a look at Balthazar’s work on the murders.  
Dave watched silently as his friend and studied the board intently. He eyes, already an electrifying steel blue, seemed to glint with ferocious determination. The orbs flitted about in their sockets, framed by thick black lashes and solid lines of dark eyeliner, focusing on each gruesome picture in turn. Balthazar’s thoughts were portrayed by lines and arrows and words scrawled in black dry-erase marker.  
“May as well start at the beginning.” Kleo said, more to herself than to Dave, though he heard it clearly.  
“Er… right th-that’s Diana Marceaux.” Dave supplied. “A voodoo priestess, found two days ago.”  
“Since the investigation isn’t done, I can’t get a hold of the official report, but Balthazar did manage to get some decent photos of the scenes.” Kleo said.  
“Yeah, they’re pretty gruesome, aren’t they?” Dave asked.  
“Next time I hunt a wendigo or a black dog I’ll send you a picture; trust me, some mutilation and a knife through the heart is clean.”  
Dave paled.  
“So it’s pretty clear that this is a ritual, right?” he asked her. She gave him a small smile and nodded at him in what he hoped was an encouraging manner; even after knowing her for a while he still found her very difficult to read.  
“Very good.” She said. Then she raised her hand to point her index finger to a cluster of pictures in the upper corner of the board. The tip of her painted nail tapped against a spiral symbol carved into Diana’s back.  
“These symbols all represent something individually, but they’re combined in a triangle. This one here is Holy Earth, and the Spiral usually signifies natural growth.”  
“What about the other one? What is that supposed to be anyway?” Dave asked, and he pointed to the last symbol to indicate which one he was talking about.  
“That one represents sexual ritual. It’s archaic. But look at all that dirt on her!”  
Dave set his gaze on Diana’s corpse instead of the symbols carved into her back. When he wasn’t focused on the deep, crimson, crevices marring her smooth skin, he did notice the sheer amount of earth covering her. It was everywhere; not one inch of her body was spared the covering of brown sediment and soil.  
“That can’t just be from being dumped in the park.” He said at last.  
“Yes. Whoever killed her purposefully covered her in dirt after carving the Holy Earth symbol into her back.”  
“Okay, but what about Ken?” Dave asked her. “He washed up on the shore of the Lake yesterday.”  
Kleo’s brow furrowed. She studied the pictures of Ken Ulfrikson’s body – sallow and stained by the icy cold water of the lake in Central Park. He had been found less than a mile from Diana, and he also had symbols carved into his back.  
“Those are seriously satanic.” Dave whispered.  
“Anti-justice, the inverted cross, and the Seal of the Left Hand Path. You’re right. I mean, the Holy earth symbol is also used in Native medicine wheels and as the Norse sun symbol, but all of these are universally used for black magic.”  
“But you’re sure it’s the same group?” Dave asked.  
“Balthazar is, and that’s enough for me.” Kleo replied.  
“The last person was found today – Nana Ikemefunasa.” Dave said, pointing to the final section of the board.  
“Yeah – still burning in the Bethesda Fountain, also less than a mile from Diana and Ken, but I’m sure it’s purely coincidental.” She made a rude, disbelieving noise.  
“Is that a sword carved into her back?” Dave asked. “And another spiral?”  
“That’s not a spiral, but your right about the sword. It’s the sword of power, and it represents light and darkness. What you thought was a spiral is actually the Labyrinth.”  
“Like the Knossos labyrinth?” Dave asked her; once again visibly paler than he had been a few moments before.  
“Yes, exactly like the Knossos labyrinth. It signifies initiation.”  
“What about that tripod-looking thing?”  
“That would be the inverted satanic cross of justice. If it was on her chest it might indicate that she’s a traitor, but it’s in the middle of her back.” Kleo explained, allowing some of her confusion to tinge her voice as she answered.  
“Is this an elemental ritual – like the classical elements?” Dave asked.  
“That would make so much more sense than believing that these sites were randomly selected.” Kleo replied. “But there’s something else; all three of the sacrifices – that’s what they have to be, it’s so obvious when you look at all of it as being one big thing – have three symbols carved into their back pre-mortem in the shape of a triangle-.”  
“And when you plot out the murder sites on a map of central park,” Dave continued her thought as he frantically pushed pins into a map that Balthazar had taped to the board. “They make another square mile triangle.”  
He took a step back from the board and turned to face Kleo with sparkling excitement in his eyes. He was proud of himself, proud of what he’d been doing and learning with Balthazar, Drake, Kleo, and on occasion, Horvath.  
“Ladies and gentlemen, the prime Merlinian has solved the Central Park Sorcerers Murders.” She said to him through a smile, doing her best to demonstrate just how proud of him she was without being a complete sap.  
Dave flushed crimson and stuttered in protest, “W-well not really. I mean, we don’t know who it as or what the tr-triangle means.”  
“But we do know what the triangle means, and all the evidence to point us to the murderers is on the bodies.”  
Dave shook his head vigorously, as if that would help him process what his friend had just said. He was sure he had missed something, since he had no clue who did it but Kleo seemed to know.  
“The sacrifices lay out the points of a Thaumaturgic triangle; their used to summon entities.” She explained, pacing the room as she always did when she was excited.  
“What kind of entities?” Dave asked, following her in mounting panic as she paced around the basement of his lab.  
“Big, bad, usually demonic entities.”  
“But if this thing is following along with classical elements, don’t they need one more sacrifice for air?” Dave asked.  
Kleo opened her mouth to answer, but from the top floor of the lab, a voice called out in answer.  
“Absolutely.”  
The voice was slightly nasal, soft, and oddly-pitched. It was a voice so distinct that no one could feasibly forget it. Kleo fought back the bile rising in her throat as she turned to face the basement stairs.  
“Kleo, wh-who is that?”  
“Dave,” Kleo said, slowly and quietly. “You need to get to the emergency exit tunnels. Do you understand me?”  
“Who is that?” he asked her again.  
She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him to her as the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs got closer and closer. Her eyes were alight with urgency as she spoke.  
“I said get out of here. I’ll do what I can, but you need to get to Balthazar!”  
Dave nodded jerkily, still confused as to what was going on, but when Kleo pushed him away he obeyed. He turned on his heel and ran for the solid steel door leading to the old fire escape tunnels of the abandoned underground station.  
As soon as she heard the heavy door slam shut behind the Prime Merlinian, Kleo slid the bolt into the lock and fused it shut. It wouldn’t help if the demon got passed her, but the explosive curse would fry his vessel.  
Like a metronome with a steadily increasing tempo setting, the footsteps were sharper, louder, and easily within two or three steps of being on the basement level. The first part of the intruder to become visible was a foot clad in silk dress socks and brown Italian leather shoes, handmade by the look of them; then came two long legs, followed by a lean torso and spidery arms, and finally a face.  
It was the face of a Scandinavian immigrant man, who had settled in Santa Barbara roughly eight months prior to being possessed. He had pure silver and salt beard to match the hair on his head, and steel grey eyes that seemed to glint blue in the flickering light of the basement, until his eyes rolled into the back of his head and all Kleo could see was pure white.  
“Heya Princess.” He said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure.”  
“Can it Alastair.” Kleo shot back, wrapping her medallions and her crucifix around her wrist. She clutched the flask of holy water in her left hand so tightly that her fingernail might have marred the metal.  
“You’re being particularly impolite you know. Not at all what I’ve come to expect from such a sweet, compassionate, young lady.” He continued to come closer with each step. His smile was bright, wide, and white with pointed teeth. His voice sent involuntary shivers down Kleo’s spine as she planted her feet.  
“You aren’t going to get the Prime Merlinian, not while I’m breathing Alastair.”  
He laughed, loudly and richly in his uniquely terrifying voice. The sound of his laughter reverberating off the walls and filling the station like demonic song lifted Kleo onto a wave of absolute illness. Her throat constricted, she felt nauseous, and her hands began to tremor ever so slightly as she looked the Alastair in his white eyes.  
“Stop laughing you son of a bitch!” she yelled at him. There was no point in maintaining pretenses of calm with Alastair; he knew her too well. He’s seen her weep, wail, and writhe in pain.  
He obeyed quickly, but continued to smirk as he took the last step that brought him within striking distance.  
“As tempting as your little friend is, he’s a target for another day I’m afraid. I’m here for you Princess.”  
Kleo’s reaction was knee-jerk and completely instinctual; five throwing knives cooled in holy water during the forging process to the torso, explosive smoke-filled pellets scattered at his feet, and one bolt of magenta plasma to the chest at point blank range.  
She ran for the door and made it halfway there before she remembered that she had fused the damn thing shut. From there her only options were to the left, to the right, or above the freakishly tall and steadily approaching demon. His arm span was also freakishly wide, but going above him might work if she could pull that flying thing again…  
She took a breath and backed up a few steps to clear a runway, and pounded her feet into the cement floor of the station basement. She felt herself lift off the ground and could only guess at how high up she managed to get due to her own smoke-screen tactic. She made it to the ground and rolled to break her fall, having the sheer dumb luck to land right by the stairs. Not bothering to look behind her to see how close behind Alastair was, she turned and bolted up the stairs, across the upper floor of Deans lab, and out the door. And right into several NYPD uniforms.  
By the time she caught her breath, she was already cuffed and being thrown into the back of a cruiser. Kleo took a second to study the situation, and then she noticed the man sitting in the front passenger seat of the police cruiser. The man had dark curly hair, pale skin, and was wearing an FBI suit.  
He flashed a bright smile, and spoke in a distinctly southern accent mitigated by several centuries of learning and adapting to the evolving English language.  
“Hello Miss Grace, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Nice of you to come join us. I’m Agent Matthew McCormick.”  
Kleo let out a mental groan and steeled her face from purveying any emotion or reaction. So much for a normal school day.


End file.
